This invention relates to an information provision intermediation apparatus for acting as an intermediary to provide the information at an information providing site.
In order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of business including the delivery and shipment inspection, sale, inventory, recall and order in the retailing field dealing in commodities, it is common practice to print or attach a bar code, a two-dimensional code or a RFID (radio frequency identification) tag (hereinafter collectively referred to as the tag) to each commodity. Further, in an ever increasing number of cases, various information related to commodities such as the production history and the information on related commodities are supplied using the tag in order to promote the sales and add the values of the commodities.
For acquiring the information on the production history of a commodity, however, consumers are required to access a predetermined information providing site for supplying the production history of the commodity using a terminal and input the information contained in the tag attached to the commodity from the terminal.
In order to acquire the information on the production history of a plurality of commodities, therefore, the consumer encounters the problem of the requirement to do the bothersome job of accessing an information providing site different for each commodity and inputting the tag information for each site.
In view of this, a method has been disclosed to acquire the production history (traceability information) of a commodity without being conscious of the existence of a plurality of information providing sites (for example, JP-A-2006-50506).
According to the technique described in JP-A-2006-50506, the commodity traceability information can be acquired without being conscious of the existence of a plurality of information providing sites. Demand has arisen from consumers, however, to acquire various useful information on commodities in addition to the traceability information.
On the other hand, it is the desire on the part of commodity manufacturers and distributors to provide information effectively to consumers who have purchased commodities.